


Kelpie Pup

by koalathebear



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kelpies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max gives Furiosa a dog.  A Kelpie puppy to be precise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kelpie Pup

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this ages ago, prompted by some fan art I saw of Max with dogs. He had an Australian Cattle Dog named Dog for some of the earlier movies and I liked the idea of him giving Furiosa a Kelpie - given that there is not a dog more quintessentially Australian than a [Kelpie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Kelpie).

"What is this?" Furiosa demanded unnecessarily, staring down at the writhing mass of life, wriggling in her arms and staring up at her expectantly.

"Dog," Max told her even more unnecessarily. The tiny puppy stared at her with dazed blue eyes that were in the course of turning olive green or maybe brown ... It opened its mouth wide to yawn, scrunched up its eyes and then fell asleep in her arms.

"What am I supposed to do with a dog?" she asked.

"Look after it,"he told her.

Three months. Three months after the overthrow of the Citadel and Max had returned with no word of where he had been, no pleasantries ...just a small creature wriggling in his bag that popped its head out as he approached the Citadel. 

Furiosa had had plenty of warning that the Road Warrior was approaching - the lookouts had announced his presence and she had had herself lowered to the ground to meet him - in time to have the small Kelpie puppy dumped into her arms.

His gaze flickered briefly over her left arm, bare and awkward. "No time to make a new one," she replied before he could ask.

"I could help with that," he told her and she shrugged. Capable and some of the boys in the workshop had started doing sketches and preliminary designs for a possible replacement for her prosthetic but they were still at a preliminary stage and Furiosa was making do with one hand in the meanwhile.

"Come in and rest. And have a bath - you stink."

He followed her silently, sensing but not really understanding the emotion simmering inside of her.

He glanced around them, at the fields in the distance, recently cleared and ploughed, painstakingly watered and now being worked by an interesting mix of people. People who had previously been the Wretched, former War Boys, former War Pups - side by side in the fields working the soil.

Immortan Joe's former reign still glowered at them in the form of the skull insignia, glowering at them from the cliff face but Cheedo was already doing sketches, planning on how to convert the ugly skull into something less menacing.

There was still a standing army. Furiosa and the others were under no illusions. The world was a cruel and brutal place and there were other Warlords who would seek to take what Immortan Joe had lost with his death. 

It had taken some effort however to persuade the War Boys, the War Pups and the Repair Boys to put aside the white powder, to put an end to the blind, mindless fervour.

There was so much to do … too much to do and sometimes Furiosa found herself leaning against the wall, taking deep breaths as she tried not to let herself get overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Everyone looked to her for guidance ... the helpless and the lost had found a leader in someone who wasn't entirely sure who she was and where she was going ...

And now?

Now there was a puppy to look after. 

*

Furiosa sat propped up against the wall of the bathing cavern as Max bathed. She didn't even bother leaving the cavern, just sat there on the ground playing with the puppy as he stepped out of his filthy clothes and into the hot spring water that bubbled and swirled in the cave. A sound dangerously like pleasure escaped his lips as he leaned back in the water and closed his eyes for a moment.

It didn't occur to him to ask her to leave either. There were no thoughts of modesty from either of them. Furiosa's gaze flicked up for a moment, staring at the extremely naked man lying in the waters of the bathing cavern. She'd caught a flicker of dirty bare flesh and maybe a little more but this was Max … he'd given her life … his own blood coursed through her veins now.

And now there was also a dog to look after.

"How am I supposed to look after a dog?" she asked him.

"Feed it," he told her briefly, opening his eyes for a moment. "Don't let it die," he told her and closed his eyes again.

"Thanks. That's … helpful," she replied ironically as the little dog chewed at her fingertips with its sharp puppy teeth and looked at her with bewildered eyes. She didn't know how to look after such a delicate creature. The hands it was nipping on only knew how to kill and maim.

*

She called the puppy Grub after it urinated and defecated over the floor of her sleeping chamber. After that, she learned to take him outside regularly, toileting him after meals and drinking, immediately after a nap.

Sometimes she'd hand the small bundle of fur to Max to hold, enjoying the unexpectedly tender sight of the big man cradling the helpless little creature in his rough hands, the tongue licking his nose and cheeks enthusiastically as he crooned wordlessly at the dog.

The first night, Grub had howled like a banshee when she had tied him to a corner of her sleeping chamber. Max had come in almost immediately. "I'll take him. He can sleep with me."

"No, it's ok … he can stay. You, too," she had told him and he had raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. In the end, he'd untied the puppy and brought Grub over to Furiosa's bed and climbed in beside her, the pup stretched lying trustfully on his chest.

"This is not a good idea," he warned her. "Once he starts sleeping in your bed … he'll get used to it … he won't want to sleep anywhere else."

"That's fine with me," Furiosa replied tersely and stretched out alongside Max and Grub. She lay on her side, tense at first but quickly relaxing as she watched Max's strong hand stroking the small puppy. 

His hand stilled when she reached out her own hand to touch his cheek lightly. He turned his head and pressed the lightest of kisses into the palm of her hand and then they slept.

*

Grub was smart and he learned quickly to let Furiosa and Max know when he needed to toilet. Furiosa kept the puppy by her side, a rope around his throat and looped around her belt. 

Max watched her approvingly. "It's hard when they're wild … they want to run away … but he'll learn … that it's better to stay … here with you."

"Is that a fact."

Max nodded. "There'll come a point when you take that rope off … you don't even have to say a word and he'll want to stay with you. Just have to be patient."

Furiosa leaned down and scooped Grub up with her good arm and cuddled him against her breast. "Good to know. I wouldn't want to keep him here if he didn't want to be with me."

Max took a step closer to her and cupped her face with his hand. He lowered his head until his forehead pressed against hers. 

His mouth brushed over hers for the briefest second, hesitant and questioning. Furiosa made a sound in her throat and deepened the kiss. When she opened her eyes, her pupils were dilated and her breathing was ragged.

"Of course he wants to be with you," Max told her hoarsely and then he puts his arms around her and holds her close, taking great care not to squash the puppy.


End file.
